Wind River

by Charles G. West

  “Virginia City, I reckon,” he decided. “Ain’t but two of ’em and they shore seem to be in a mighty big hurry.”

  He climbed down from the tree and took his time saddling Joe. Looking around to make sure he left no evidence of his presence there, he stepped up into the saddle and guided Joe out of the trees. He made a wide circle around the Sioux camp and cut the renegades’ trail upriver. He was in no hurry to overtake them right away. Might as well wait until they got closer to a point directly west of Fort Lincoln before he jumped them and not have to bother with them until then.

  He cut their trail easily enough but it was plain to see they were taking pains to cover it this time. Before, with the wagons, they acted as if they didn’t care who knew where they were going. This time they crossed the river three times and once rode more than a mile up a rocky creek before doubling back and following the river again. “Mighty strange,” Squint told Joe. “It’s like they know somebody is trailing them. They must not trust their Injun friends, probably thinking them redskins is thinking about keeping the wagons and the hides too. Yessir, they shore are going to a heap of trouble to cover their tracks. And any fool can see they’re following the Powder all the way to Montana.”

  The two men rode their horses hard, making about forty miles before stopping to camp in a large washout near the river. Squint was getting fairly tired of riding himself, and was glad when they finally tied their horses off and went about making a small campfire. He found a well hidden gully with an oak tree hanging over it and settled down to wait for dark. His would be a cold camp—it wasn’t wise to risk showing a glow from a fire.

  When it was dark enough, Squint moved silently up to the rim of the washout. If he hadn’t been following them and seen them go in there, he wouldn’t have been able to find them in the dark. From his vantage point, he could see the two of them settling themselves around the tiny fire, both men preparing to sleep. Obviously they didn’t feel the necessity to stand guard, thinking they had covered their trail sufficiently. He waited until there was no longer a murmur of conversation and they appeared to be drifting into sleep. Then Squint got up and casually, but silently, walked into their camp.

  “Evenin’, boys.”

  Both men reacted as if he had thrown an angry rattle-snake in their midst. Moody almost rolled into the fire in an effort to get to his feet. Squint calmly kicked him over on his back again, keeping his pistol trained on Kroll, knowing this was where the more serious trouble was likely to come from.

  “I wouldn’t,” Squint warned when Kroll started to reach for his rifle, which was laying next to his bedroll. “I don’t know how fast you are, but if you want to see if your hand can beat this bullet to that there rifle, why, hell, give her a try.”

  Kroll was angry but he was alert enough to know that the imposing figure standing across the fire from them had the advantage. He slowly drew his hand away from the rifle and sat up to face Squint. “What the hell do you want?” He spat the words defiantly, uncertain as to the nature of the attack on their camp.

  “Why, I’ve come to be your personal escort to Fort Lincoln, make sure nothin’ happens to you on the way. First though, we need to take a little inventory. Let’s see how many guns we can find on you. You can start by taking that rifle by the barrel and sliding it over this way.”

  “Fort Lincoln?” Kroll growled. “We ain’t going to Fort Lincoln. Who the hell are you, anyway?”

  After he had relieved them of their weapons, Squint threw a couple of sticks on the fire and fanned the flames back to life. He had a feeling he had run across these two before and he wanted to get a better look at them. “Well, well,” he said. “Now, I’m not surprised it’s you two sweethearts.” He recognized them as the scum he had the run-in with back at Deer Crossing.

  Moody finally found his voice, “What you bothering us for, mister? Hell, if it’s skins you’re looking for, maybe we could cut you in for a share.”

  “Shut your mouth, Moody,” Kroll warned. Looking back at Squint, he spat, “We ain’t cuttin’ you in for nothin’. We worked for these skins. You ain’t gittin’ shit.”

  Squint laughed. “I reckon I could cut myself in for all of ’em if I wanted to, since I’m the one holding the gun. You say you worked for ’em? I saw how you worked for ’em. I helped bury the six men you left back there in the hills. So I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’ll take you back to Fort Lincoln where you can have a fair trial. Then I’m gonna set in the shade and watch while the army hangs your sorry carcasses.”

  Kroll did not answer immediately. He sat there and glared at the man he now remembered. After a long pause, he said, “We don’t know nothin’ about no six men. You got the wrong two.”

  Squint snorted. “We ain’t gon’ waste time talking about that. I tracked you to that Sioux camp. And I followed you here. You done it all right.”

  “It’s a long ways to Fort Lincoln and they’s two of us. I don’t think you can make it before one of us gits you.”

  “Well now, I’m real sorry to hear you say that. I’d hoped we could go along like family. But I’m obliged to you for warning me.” That said, he cocked the hammer back on his pistol and put a bullet into Kroll’s right shoulder. The impact knocked Kroll over backward. “That’ll give you something to think about on the trip besides jumping me.”

  The sudden explosion of the pistol startled Moody so badly that he thought he was shot too. “Gawd a’mighty, mister, don’t kill us!” he screamed, fearful that the next bullet would surely be for him.

  “Shut up. I ain’t gonna shoot you if you behave yourself. Now take that rag off your neck and stuff it around his shoulder to stop the blood. I don’t reckon he’ll die before we can get him to his hanging.”

  After taking care of Kroll’s wound, Squint held a gun on Moody while he had him tie up his wounded companion. Then Squint tied Moody up and settled in for a few hours’ sleep before heading for Fort Lincoln at first light. He had it figured that Kroll was the real threat, and now that he was neutralized with a bullet wound, Moody would pose no problem. They started out with the first rays of the sun. Moody led, followed by the pack mules, then Kroll, cursing and groaning at every rough spot in the trail. Squint rode behind the procession. The trip to Lincoln took four days from the spot where Squint captured them, four days of hard riding with no more than a few hours of sleep for Squint. He was more than happy to see the gates of the fort just before dark on the fourth day.

  * * *

  “Well, good morning! Danged if you didn’t sleep right through reveille.” Andy Coulter set a cup of coffee and a mess tin down on the small table between the two cots. “I brung you some breakfast. Figured you’d be hungry if you ever did wake up.”

  Squint sat up on the edge of his cot. “Much obliged.” He glanced out the open doorway. “Damn! It’s past sunup. I reckon I did sleep, didn’t I?”

  “I reckon.”

  “I didn’t get much the last four nights. Tell you the truth, I was a mite shy of closing my eyes very long around them two, even if they was tied up.” He blew on the coffee and took a couple of careful sips of the boiling-hot liquid. “Ain’t nothing stronger than army coffee.” He set the cup down and stumbled to the door. Looking right and left to be sure no one was around, he walked barefoot around the corner of the building to relieve himself. The colonel was mighty particular about pissing off the porch. Squint and Andy usually did it anyway when they got up. When he finished, he returned to the small room he and Andy shared and sat down to his plate of biscuit and gravy.

  Andy tilted his chair back against the wall, cut himself a chew of tobacco and watched Squint eat. “Well, I see they got your two boys locked up in the guardhouse, waiting for trial.”

  Squint looked up from his plate. “Waiting for trial? Hell, I figured they’d just hang ’em and be done with it. If I’da knowed they was gonna go through all that horseshit, I’da just done the job myself.”

  Andy laughed. “Maybe you shoulda. You
oughta know how the army operates by now. Tom Allred said the word was they would have a full investigation into the charges. Ain’t no tellin’ how long them boys’ll be in the stockade.”

  “I reckon ole Custer just wants to have a big military trial to break up the monotony around here.”

  “I reckon.” Andy lowered his chair back down on the floor and stood up. He walked to the door and spat. Wiping the brown tobacco residue from his chin, he said, “Soon as you’re dressed, we got to go see Captain Benteen. He’s taking the whole troop out on patrol in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Little Wolf stood trembling. His body ached with sorrow and his brain screamed with despair. His very soul had been torn and wounded. His world, his happiness, lay before him lifeless and cold. The women of the village had found Morning Sky lying mutilated and bloody in the berry thicket. They had bathed her body and dressed her in a clean buckskin tunic. He had never before known such rage and he drew his knife and slashed his chest and stomach repeatedly in mourning, but nothing eased the pain from within. He was not sure he wanted to live this life without her. Morning Sky was dead. How could he accept it? He sobbed when he thought how she had met her fate, at the hands of the white vermin he had ordered from the village. Morning Sky gone? Surely this was a bad dream. Surely he would awaken and hear her soft singing as she went about her chores. He touched her hand, once warm and feeling, now cold and stiff. He would never again feel her warm caress. Then the weakness left him and he could feel the fiery hot venom of revenge filling his veins. He swore he would not rest until he had found the men who had done this.

  Sitting Bull came to comfort him in his grief. They would organize a great war party to find the two buffalo hunters, he said, and to wreak revenge on all whites for this outrage. But Little Wolf refused the chief’s offer of help. No, he told him. He alone must be allowed the right to punish the two white men. They must die by his own hand before Morning Sky’s spirit could walk in peace in the other world. Sitting Bull understood and respected Little Wolf’s wishes. It was his right.

  A Sioux scout had ridden out after the men as soon as Morning Sky’s body was discovered. He returned on the same day Little Wolf returned from the hunt. The scout reported that he had followed their trail, catching up with the two men after nightfall. They were joined by a third white man, who shot one of the buffalo hunters and tied them both up. The next morning, the large giant of a man tied them to their horses and took them away. They went toward the white man’s fort. Since the large man appeared to be a formidable foe and seemed to be always alert, the Sioux scout decided not to attack the three men, and returned to report his findings to Sitting Bull.

  After Little Wolf had mourned for Morning Sky for three days, he readied himself for his mission of vengence. Word had been brought back to the village that the two white men had been placed in the stockade at Fort Lincoln. Little Wolf set out on a chilly fall morning, bound for the fort. His mind was of one purpose—to kill Morning Sky’s murderers. Nothing else mattered. Sleeps Standing and Lame Otter pleaded to accompany him but he refused. It was for him and him alone to avenge his wife’s death.

  A light rain fell as Little Wolf rode, hunched over slightly, a hood of antelope hide over his head for protection against the steady drizzle. The Appaloosa ate up the miles with a steady gait that soon saw the Beaver River and the Little Missouri behind them as he crossed the harsh, rolling prairie toward Fort Lincoln. The high mountains were far behind him now. Near another river, he saw the first signs of the white man’s advances into the sacred lands of the Sioux and Cheyenne. There was a roughly built log hut with a horse corral and some planted crops growing around it. He stopped at a distance and stared at the homestead for a long while before continuing on his journey. After another day’s ride he saw what could only be Fort Lincoln on the horizon. He must be alert now for he was surely in the land of the white man. The hatred that had driven him on to this place must now give way to cunning—he had devised no plan to find the two he hunted. First I must sleep, he counseled himself, so that my senses will be keen. After I have rested, I will think of a plan.

  Skirting another settler’s cabin, he rode until he crossed a small stream south of the fort. Here he made his camp, and after a supper of pemmican, he slept. His was the sleep of the weary. He was tired and his heart was heavy under its burden. He dreamed of his wife, preparing his food, sewing the hides he had taken, making love to him. And then he saw the faces of the two buffalo hunters, filthy and evil, and he was powerless to cast them out of his tipi. He fought with them but they became the mountain lion he had first dreamed of when he was still a boy searching for his vision. Then, as in that vision, the lion was overpowered by a great grizzly. When he awoke, he felt the strength of the grizzly from which he took his power and he knew that the dream was a good omen and his medicine was still strong.

  Keeping a safe distance from the guard posts, he scouted the fort, searching for a way to steal into the encampment and find the two hunters. It became clear to him that if he was to find them, it would not be as he was, a Cheyenne warrior. In order to get close enough, he would have to be a white man again. He thought for a long time before he decided on a plan: he would go back to the first settler’s cabin he had passed and wait for dark. Then he would go in and kill the occupants and take what clothing he needed. This decided, he got on the Appaloosa and retraced his trail.

  * * *

  He tied his horse to a small sapling and made his way through the trees that overlooked the rough cabin. From there he watched for a while. There was a cornfield between the woods and the cabin. The stalks were brown and barren but it would offer enough cover for him to get closer to the house. Looking beyond the cabin toward the river, he could see a man plowing a small patch of ground with one mule. There was one sorrel horse and a cow in a stable next to the cabin, and a large dog lying in the yard. Smoke from the chimney told him there was at least one person inside.

  As he watched, a boy came out of the cabin. He was about the same age Little Wolf was when Spotted Pony found him, he guessed. The thought caused his mind to drift back to that time and he remembered how helpless and frightened he had been. It seemed a million summers ago. Though he could barely remember how it was to be a white boy, he could vividly remember the fear of being alone in the world. Suddenly he did not want to do what he had come to this cabin to do. The thought of leaving this young boy alone in the world caused a cold dread in his heart and he had to concentrate on the picture of his murdered wife in an effort to strengthen his resolve. The boy’s father was stealing the land that belonged to the Indian. He must remember that. The white man was the enemy of his people. They had killed everyone he loved. He could not afford compassion at this point.

  His attention was called from the boy playing in the yard to a movement beyond the cabin. When he glanced in that direction, he saw the father coming from the field. The afternoon sun was still high in the sky when the man put his mule in with the other stock. Little Wolf had anticipated a longer wait before the man returned to the cabin, but even in broad daylight, there was enough cover in the cornfield to work his way close to the cabin to do what must be done. He left the tree he had been watching from and made his way silently down between the rows of cornstalks. Moving cautiously and patiently, he worked his way to the edge of the field nearest the cabin. He had made sure he was downwind because of the dog. Now he could hear bits of conversation drifting on the wind.

  The man took a pan and dipped water out of a rain barrel and began to wash his arms and face. The boy was standing beside him, talking to him. Little Wolf could hear the sound of their voices but was unable to make out the words. Keeping almost flat to the ground, he pulled himself a few rows closer. Now he was almost to the end of the field. He froze when a woman stood in the doorway holding a towel for her husband. Little Wolf reached back and drew an arrow from his quiver. His rifle would be too noisy, he decided. Little Wolf was certain now that there were
only the three of them and he knew he could put an arrow into the man’s back and a second one into the woman before she could run for a weapon. Slowly he raised up on one knee and, taking careful aim, drew the bowstring back. At this distance, he could not miss, but he hesitated. Something the boy said made him wait.

  “Pa, remember, you said as soon as you got done plowing the back field. You promised.”

  “I remember,” his father replied. “But I thought you’da done forgot it by now. Wouldn’t you druther do it tomorrow evening?”

  “Ahhh, Pa, you said.”

  “The boy’s right, Alvin. You promised him.” His wife handed him the towel.

  He paused a moment, looking as if he was treed. Finally he gave in. “All right, a promise is a promise. Go get the poles and we’ll go catch us a couple.” He turned to his wife and grinned. “That’d be all right, wouldn’t it, Ma? You could fry a couple of fish to throw in with supper.”

  “I reckon so,” she replied and smiled broadly.

  Little Wolf sank slowly back between the corn rows, relieved that they were simplifying his task. Now there was only the woman to deal with. His heart was lifted of the dread he had suddenly felt over having to kill the family. If only the woman would go with them, he thought.

  As if in answer to his wish, the man called back. “Why don’t you come on with us, Ma? Supper can wait, can’t it?”

  “Me? Lord no, I’m almost ready to put supper on the table. I can’t go traipsing off to the river with you two.”

  “Come on, Ma,” her son pleaded. “Me and Pa’ll show you how to catch a fish.”

  Lying in the dust of the cornfield, Little Wolf listened to the exchange and silently pleaded, Go with them, woman. It may save your life.